The Myth of Gonggong and Mount Buzhou: The Story of the Water God Ramming the Pillar of Heaven

The story of Gonggong and Mount Buzhou comes from ancient Chinese mythology. It tells how Gonggong, the water god, after failing in his struggle with Zhuanxu for the throne of emperor, flew into a rage and rammed his head into Mount Buzhou. This legend is mainly found in ancient texts such as the Huainanzi. Like Nüwa Mending the Sky and Pangu Creating the World, it is one of the classic myths the ancients used to explain the formation of heaven and earth and natural phenomena.

In the legend, Mount Buzhou was one of the pillars holding up the sky, located in the northwest direction. After Gonggong rammed it in anger, the pillar of heaven broke, and the rope that bound the earth also snapped. As a result, the sky tilted toward the northwest, and the earth sank in the southeast. Through this, the ancients explained why the sun, moon and stars move from east to west, and why China's terrain is high in the west and low in the east, with most rivers flowing from west to east.

As for this conflict, ancient texts record slightly different versions. Some say Gonggong fought Zhuanxu for the throne, while others say Gonggong battled Zhurong, the fire god, from which the idiom of water and fire being incompatible was derived. The name Mount Buzhou is generally understood to mean incomplete or not whole, so named because the mountain body was smashed and a gap appeared. To this day there is no unified account of the specific location it refers to.

This myth has had a profound cultural influence. It reflects the ancient cosmological belief that a pillar of heaven propped up the sky and that the sky tilted and the earth sank, and it also shaped the image of Gonggong as one who dared to rage and to fight. Later poetry and prose often used Gonggong ramming the mountain and the sky tilting to the northwest as allusions, to express a spirit of resistance or to voice emotion, making it a highly representative piece in the Chinese mythological system.